A Belated Second Pass at Ahmedebad

These are some pics from the morning Charles & I & Pirate headed out to check out Ahmedebad's 'old city' (which I will do a separate entry for).

Please click on the pictures to embiggen.

A street sweeper near our hotel.

A small fruit juice stand near the road.

It doesn't look like this auto-rickshaw travels much.  It's more like a small Indian corner store....

….that makes most of it's money off paan and cigarettes.

Dave the Pirate, himself, at his regular morning chai stall.

Shoe-shine guy.

First pass at Ahmedabad

Finally got to Gujarat, after decades of somehow passing it by.  Not a lot of tripping around, just a stop in Ahmedabad on the way to Mount Abu in Rajasthan.  A'bad is a pretty good sized city - 6-7 million.  So, is it polluted?  Duh, could hardly see a star at night and breathing the pollution in was noticeable.  Crazy busy streets in the modern part, but the old city, with windy little roads and alleys, actually seemed to me to a better experience than the area I stayed in, near the Gandhi ashram.  Only spent a few days in A'bad.

Anyway, here are a few pics just showing the Ashram and one other spot of notice.

Please click on the pics to embiggen, of course!

 The grounds of the Gandhi ashram are pretty peacefull.  It's not just a museum, where you get a static sterilized view of the activities since Gandhi's time, but it is an active centre of social movements and assistance, with different agencies working through it to improve people's plights.

The house where he lived and worked

Another view

The courtyard inside the house.

These are former street kids working at the ashram.

This woman is the third generation of her family in a sweeper position at the ashram.

Now for a place right near the ashram, a toilet museum!  Actually, it's a very active centre for getting Indians - especially in villages - to use formal sanitation, in the form of different kinds of toilets.   They teach classes on principles of sanitation and building and maintaining toilets, have demo materials,  have a restaurant, and even give visitors a chance to create bio-gas from using their facilities!

A garden of toilets of many types.

Reuse of old facilities.

Ah, yes, sitting around a squatter for a cup of tea!

If you'd like to make some gas, they've got the setup for creating and burning it off!

Just some kind of artwork.

Some bits of Udaipur and around.

These pics are from one day in Udaipur and a morning trip outside of town to visit a couple of temples with Pete & Chris.
I do love to hang out in this town, more than any other Indian city.  It has become more 'two-wheeled' and 'tourist-car'd' over the years, but it remains my fave.

Please click on a pic to embiggen.

A view of part of the city from a boat at sunset.

Some migratory friends on the lake.

The streets are so narrow that they still use these little donkies to move construction materials.

Think how strong an arm you would have if you had to iron your clothes with a coal-heated one of these babies!

An art display at the City Palace.

Strange to have a restaurant for foreigners sign in this somewhat rough location.

A view of part of the Sas Bahu temple complex, just outside of Udaipur.

Sweeper lady and her broom.

Somewhat pain in the butt kid at the temple - wouldn't leave you alone.....so I took his picture.

Next stop was at a temple where no pics were allowed.  Not a very nice spot (amazing temple, though), but I did take some pics of the activity around the temple.

A Chai Guy in the town.

On the way back we stopped for a chai at a local little dhaba.

......which also had the remnants of a huge advertising bottle!

My favorite chill spot at the Lal Ghat.....hours & hours spent there over the years.

Down under in Udaipur

Down under...a temple...at a little chai stall.
This fellow has run a very small but popular chai stall for some years under a small side-of-the-road chai stall.  I always try to stop & have a cup or two, sitting at a bench at another small temple across the alley from the place.

Under the temple on the right side, a little door....

....is a little chai stall (an assistant working during a lunch break).

An assistant grinding up spices for the chai

The Chai Guy!

He serves the neighborhood, so there is always lots of chai being made and sent out.

Straining the chai.

The Chai Guy!

Just a smidgeon more of Mumbai

Charles & I took the obligatory boat trip to Elephanta, on an island about one hour off the coast of Mumbai.  It's a pleasant trip on a 40-50 person boat (some are smaller, some larger, no visible life-jackets), from the India Gate to the island.  You get to get a look at the smoggy coastline and a wide variety of ships in the harbour.
To see the caves & statues on the island you have to walk the gauntlet of tiny shops up the steps from sea-level.  On a hot day you really appreciate that the shops have strung tarps across the stairs the whole trip....but it's a bit disorienting as the tarps are all blue so you walk through a weird atmosphere.

One of the smaller boats making the trip out to Elephanta.

There's a lot of construction happening on the island.  This worker's
kids were asking him about something while he laboured.

Some can't make it up the long stairway to the caves and statues, so they can be carried up through the crowds.

An older fellow on tour around the caves.

The most significant of the statues in the caves is a 6 meter tall bust of the Shiva Trimurti - three aspects of creation, protection and destruction.  A much more impressive sight in person.

Back in Mumbai, there was a protest about trying to reduce the absolutely deafening and constant honking of horns by every type of vehicle in the city (and all over India).  People were taking the pledge to stop honking, pasting anti-honking pledge stickers on their cars.

An 'art piece' drawing attention to the campaign at the India Gate.

Shhhhh!  Stop honking!

...and a little Ganesh on a tree.